LIHUE — When students and families of Ae Kamalii Preschool in Lihue fed the turkey, they fed the community, too. Their goal with the “Feed the Turkey” drive was to collect and donate 100 pounds of food to the Kauai
LIHUE — When students and families of Ae Kamalii Preschool in Lihue fed the turkey, they fed the community, too.
Their goal with the “Feed the Turkey” drive was to collect and donate 100 pounds of food to the Kauai Independent Food Bank. They easily exceeded that goal with 137 pounds, breaking the school’s scale and contributing to the success of the KIFB 2015 Holiday Food and Fund Drive, which ended Dec. 31.
“This is tremendous,” said Kelvin Moniz, KIFB executive director. “We exceeded our goal of 40,000 pounds of food and $40,000. It has been more than three years since we met our goal. The need for what you folks gave is there, and now, we will have new goals for our 2016 Healthy Food and Fund Drive — $45,000 and 45,000 pounds of food collected.”
He was met by a unanimous show of enthusiastic young waving arms when he asked, “How many of you like Vienna sausage?”
“Many of you can eat an entire can by yourself,” Moniz said. “But can you imagine that there are people who have to feed a family on just one can? There are people who just don’t have enough money to be able to get food. There are people who can’t get a can of Vienna sausage and feed their family bread and water.”
The Ae Kamalii collection was the final pickup for the drive.
Moniz said the success of the KIFB Holiday Food and Fund drive was the result of many hands and many hearts helping to make sure people don’t go hungry. Among those are the Department of Education, the visitor industry, Wilcox Memorial Hospital and Kauai residents and visitors.
Proceeds from the drive goes to support the programs offered by the Kauai Independent Food Bank, including its Keiki Cafe program, the Backpack program which is offered to children who might not otherwise have healthy food when school lets out, the healthy after-school snack programs, and the kupuna program.
